already gone
by ten million fireflies
Summary: "If he could disconnect, if he could just become desensitized and apathetic enough to recognize that this trunk, that these unfeeling branches and cold leaves were not the girl he had once loved, he could do it." Luke Castellan reflects on his decisions and his loyalties as he is sent to poison Thalia's tree during TSOM. Rated T due to a brief mention of suicide.


**Hello everyone! I guess I'm really productive when I'm procrastinating on Indelible...heh...heh...*looks away awkwardly* Well. Here is a brand new oneshot/introspective/drabble-thingy focusing on Luke Castellan, one of my favorite characters. Similar in style to Two Thirds of a Family. Originally inspired by a shuffle drabble I wrote to the song "He Won't Go" by ADELE. Enjoy!**

**I disclaim.**

* * *

_will he go back to the place where he'd _

_choose the poison over me_

_~adele_

* * *

_Your task is simple, Luke Castellan._

He can still hear the chilling voice of Lord Kronos echoing in his head and reverberating throughout his body, like ice cubes slipping down his spine.

_You are not to fail me._

He breathes in and out, filling his lungs with the crisp night air. In and out, in and out. Is the fact that he has to remind himself to breathe a sign of his own insanity?

He wouldn't be very surprised.

He tosses the vial back and forth, back and forth, causing the murky liquid to splash against the sides of the glass container. He breathes in and out again.

This, Luke Castellan decides, is the single hardest thing he has ever had to do.

As he walks across the achingly familiar grounds of Half Blood Hill, he inspects the vial again. Gorgon's blood- the poisonous kind. Diluted, so that just one drop injected into any living thing would cripple its system- gradually, painfully- starting from the inside out. The being would then become susceptible to all surrounding toxins, and any magical properties or abilities would weaken- gradually, painfully. Eventually- gradually, painfully- the being would wither and die.

It's simple enough science- at least, so far as science went for the mythological side of things. It becomes far more complicated when the living thing being poisoned was Thalia Grace.

Luke's heart pounds as his eyes dart across the hill. No signs of any patrol or guards. Silently, he creeps across the camp borders, and there she was- Thalia.

_Not _Thalia, Luke tells himself, firmly. Thalia's _tree._ The tree was _not _Thalia, not Thalia as he remembered her, not the Thalia with a fiery spirit and fierce blue eyes that pierced straight through him even his dreams, haunting him for years. If he could disconnect, if he could just become desensitized and apathetic enough to recognize that this trunk, that these unfeeling branches and cold leaves were_ not_ the girl he had once loved, he could do it. He could kill her- _not_ her, he reminds himself again, _it_- and not give it a second thought.

He pulls a syringe from his sweatshirt pocket, drawing a measure of the poison from the vial. He poises it by the base of her- of _its _trunk.

His hands are shaking, violently.

He drops the needle. He can't do this.

_Why _can't he do this? He's personally taken the lives of at least a dozen in the past year, and he's watched over twice that die on his orders. Why should one girl- _not_ one girl, one _tree_- be any different?

Luke knows the answer, of course. Some part of him cannot deny the solid fact that this tree was once Thalia, _his_ Thalia, and he can't bring himself to poison her.

_You disappoint me, Luke Castellan._

The voice is back. Luke feels a chill run suddenly through the wind.

_I had great plans for you._

_No!_ He cannot give up- he has come too far to give up, to return to the gods. This tree- the reason this tree is no longer the daughter of Zeus is because of the gods, because of Zeus himself!

He could have saved her. Zeus could have saved her, could have healed her, could have allowed his own daughter to live- how hard would it have been? He could have spared her life- instead, he turned her into a gods-forsaken _tree_, just a shallow reminder of what once was.

The gods. The gods are what did this to him- what tore apart his family. The gods were what killed Thalia, what hurt Annabeth-

Annabeth.

He wonders what she thinks of him.

She probably hates him- _surely_ she hates him, after all he's done-

_It doesn't matter, _he tells himself. None of it is his doing- he is not to be blamed for what the gods have done to his family. And what if he's wrong? He's already gone. _Nothing matters anymore. _

He aims the needle at the tree again- not at Thalia, for this tree is not and will never be Thalia Grace. The gods made sure of that when they left her to die for them, bleeding and broken and abandoned on Half Blood Hill.

Luke injects the needle.

Suddenly his mind fills with a flash of memories, memories and pain-but is there really a difference anymore?

Thalia is screaming, a pack of hellhounds salivating around her, Annabeth crying and gripping Thalia's legs. He sees his younger self, slashing through the pack with a dagger- was he really that fearless? - and receiving no small amount of injuries. But it's too late- by the time he reaches Thalia, there's already a portion of her flesh missing, no doubt in the teeth of one of the hellhounds. She's surrounded in blood, blood-so much blood.

She was in agony then, he remembers. He had never seen her so hurt, not until-until she died.

He wonders if that's how she's feeling now-because deep down he knows that it's not an it he's just poisoned, not at all. It's a she.

_And he's killed her._

The thought makes him want to drive the remainder of the poison into his heart.

Shaking, he drops the vial. It shatters upon impact with the ground, the remainder of the gorgon's blood pooling on the grass, immediately turning it to brown.

In and out, he tells himself, breathe in and out. He has to remind himself to inhale and exhale again. If he wasn't insane previously, he most certainly is now.

Sprinting, he dashes away from the tree- away from _her_. To where, he doesn't know- all Luke is aware of is that he needs to be as far as possible away from Thalia, away from this reminder of the family he's lost. He wipes a hand across his forehead, and it comes across cold with sweat.

He feels shame swelling up inside of him and threatening to take over his entire being. He has chosen the poison, chosen Kronos over the girl he once would have died for, and he hates himself for it.

He bends over a pond in the woods, staring at his haggard reflection, and marvels at the monster he's somehow become.


End file.
